A newly published study shows that the combined vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox doubled the risk of febrile seizure. This provides the opportunity, one of the most absurd decisions of the Standing Committee on Vaccination (STIKO) to reconsider again.
As one of the last acts of the vaccine industry in 2007 to over exchanged notorious long-time chairman of the STIKO, HJ Schmitt, is the inclusion of varicella vaccination in the general vaccination schedule in mind. Germany pressed ahead with this recommendation as a complete surprise and it alone in Europe. Especially as the experiences that were available in the United States for the benefit of vaccination, is anything but positive.
One of the reasons for the recommendation of the STIKO was the simultaneous introduction of a market-quadruple vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox (varicella). This MMRV vaccine " Priorix Tetra " of the GlaxoSmithKline group lived in Germany - probably in consultation with the extreme close-pharmaceutical experts STIKO - its European premiere.
still is Priorix Tetra outside of Germany only offered in a few European countries. First, because of concerns about a lower effectiveness of the four-man combo compared to the conventional triple-combo, measles-mumps-rubella (MMR). Second, because of general concerns about the usefulness of a chickenpox vaccine.
chickenpox usually proceed without complications and are cured within a few days (photo: BE)
I have in my book " praise of the disease - Why it's healthy, now and then too ill to be , "written extensively about the importance of diseases for the aging of the immune system. The chickenpox comes here as one of the last remaining "teething" a special significance in terms of "training camps for a strong immune system" to. The complication of the disease is so low that most pediatricians these additional vaccination are skeptical.
been linked since the vaccination with the reasonable MMR vaccination showed himself so many dire consequences that can only make it more difficult to reverse:
The circulation of viruses goes back, without that there is a real chance of this virus to exterminate. It follows that there chickenpox epidemics remains, however, not annually, as before, but much less frequently. So that children become infected less frequently and the average Age of onset increases. In the U.S., where vaccination is carried out since 1995, has the average age of onset since then more than doubled and now stands at just eleven years.
If age is rising further, more cases of chickenpox occur in pregnant women, which can have similar disastrous consequences for the unborn babies as with rubella. When teenagers or adults diagnosed with chicken pox, so in general, the complication rate is much higher than in children, in the usual age (between two and six years) to go through the disease and usually within a few days are completely healthy again.
Another consequence problem of vaccination is that vaccinated mothers to their babies less protective antibodies pass on this and then have a higher risk of developing in the first months of life. Until now, those early cases of disease is very rare. It is known however of the same Effket for measles, that there is a significantly higher risk of complications.
In an eradication of the smallpox virus is impossible, because the virus - in contrast to measles - stay for a lifetime in the body: both after chickenpox illness and after a chickenpox vaccine used in the virus life to entrench these viruses there at the ends of nerve fibers "sleep" and. These viruses can in later life - such as in times of increased stress or weakened immune system - again, "wake up". Then they no longer cause the symptoms of chickenpox manifest itself (herpes zoster) as a so-called shingles.
Now we know that increases the risk of shingles, when adults have little contact with chickenpox-ill children. The game seems to keep the virus dormant viruses in the body of adults under control. Now, if ill with chicken pox any more children, increased outbreaks of shingles in adults followed with dramatic consequences: Shingles can - depending on the cause nerve involvement dreaded pain, there remain even after the healing of the disease and those affected . Torment There is no effective therapy. The costs would be enormous. In the U.S. cases of shingles since the introduction of the chickenpox vaccine more than doubled.
The vaccine manufacturers responded with the introduction of a shingles vaccine for it is basically a slightly higher dose children vaccinated. Vaccination is therefore trying to contact with chickenpox sick children to imitate and has - at least for the producers - the advantage that it can be earned twice with the disease: in children and the elderly.
Overall, the introduction of a chickenpox vaccine for the general population many disadvantages and an enormous health risk with it. And it requires a really precise analysis of this topic, because facts are so set that no longer - or only with enormous sacrifices - can be undone. Therefore, it would hire up to the time to review the decision of the STIKO again, or the now slightly less heavy pharmaceutical expert with the Commission's own evaluation of its earlier decision.
could sooner or later it transpires the compulsion to use the four-man combo, if the manufacturers to stop offering the individual components. As is of course extremely difficult for the other children's vaccines, tetanus, diphtheria or whooping cough vaccine individually to get in the pharmacies. Here it is the six-vaccine Infanrix-hexa , which enjoys a monopoly position and has replaced all the other baby's vaccines widely. If
in live vaccines against four childhood diseases now - sooner or later - is available only a quadruple vaccine on the market, the parents also choose to no longer possible. In order to assure their children a protection against measles, mumps and rubella, they would be forced to take the chicken pox vaccination.
is now published in the journal Pediatrics a study that provides a further argument for not the four-combined vaccine used: Already in 2008 a study showed that the MMRV vaccine doubled the risk of subsequent severe febrile seizures in children. Now the suspicion in a recent study in the context of large-scale "Vaccine Safety Datalink" study has confirmed. In a comparison of 83 107 vaccinees who received a four-MMRV vaccination, with 376 354 vaccinees who received the traditional MMR vaccine plus a single vaccination against chickenpox (varicella), there was again a doubled risk of seizure. The MMRV vaccine causes therefore an additional febrile seizure per 2300 vaccinations.
Febrile seizures are needed for all parents who join such a thing, a shocking Experience. I myself have done this with my son and I wish with anybody. Even if the objective risk of dying, the children or suffer permanent damage is low, so alone is the sight of the unconscious shaken by convulsions favorites that seem to choke, horrible.
Now, if the febrile seizure risk is a reason the entire policy with respect to reconsider the mass vaccination against chickenpox again, so has at least something good.
